The Missing Word in IT's Vocabulary

If you ask any IT leader to describe their schedule they would say it's full.  Full of meetings, full of problems, and full of projects.

They can go on and on about all the things happening in their lives.

Now ask them what they completed in the past year...

... as in finished, delivered, shipped.

I thought so.

It would seem that the word "done" is missing from most CIO's vocabulary.

The ‘P’ List for IT Project Management…

Occasionally my brain starts a thought that just keeps going.

Like it did when I started jotting down some ideas around project management for software projects.

Each of these thoughts are key considerations in each and every IT project.

So here they are in no particular order of importance.

See if I've left any out.  I'd be delighted to hear from you in the comments section.

Lights! Camera! Axiom!

If they ever did a movie about my life (not that my life is that exciting, but bear with me here), I would look at formative moments that had a profound influence on how I've turned out.

Just in case they ever run out of an audience for teenage vampires, unrequited love stories, car chases, terrorist plots, superheroes, talking animals (am I missing any here?) and are desperate enough to ever want to make a movie about leading a high performing IT organization... I'll keep all of the plot spoilers under wraps for now.

But there is one moment that I would really want to be in the movie that I will share.

It has influenced my approach to life in so many ways.

I don't even remember where or when I heard it, or who said it... but it has become part of me.

It was a simple sentence, originally meant to be funny, but incredibly profound thing, almost proverbial in nature.

It really is an axiom - a self-evident truth that requires no proof.

If you don't like the F-Bomb...

Every summer, it seems like half our campus is under construction.

There is a flurry of activity during the months the students are away and by this time of year with just over a week left before classes, emotions are well... a little on the anxious side.

In the genteel, professional world of the IT department... there are certain words that are not heard very often.

Words that rhyme with "truck shoe" and "clucking".

But you sure hear them at the construction site.

Image: MS Office Imagebank

And since IT is usually the last department in the site before occupancy, it is easy to suggest that we are the hold up.  After all, who can't do three weeks worth of equipment installation work in one week?

And since we are perceived to be holding things up, sometimes the F-bomb gets launched in our direction.

If you take it personally, you are sunk.

Before You Pitch Your Proposal, Take a Ride on Your Nearest Elevator

Image: MS Office Imagebank

Quick!

Stop whatever you are doing and find your nearest elevator.

If you are reading this at work, this shouldn't be difficult.

If you work out of your home, you may have a bit more challenge.

Did you find your elevator?

Good.

Now take a ride, and time it.

How long did it take?

45 seconds?

57 seconds?

90 seconds?

For all of the engineering and Sheldon-type people out there... you don't have to be exact.  72.592 seconds is not the right answer.  In fact, whatever time you measured (or guessed if you are not good at following instructions) doesn't really matter.

While not highly scientific, nobody seems to argue with me when I offer that the average elevator ride is one minute in length.

Get this figure in your mind.  Get to know what 60 seconds feels like.

What does that have to do with anything?

How to harvest the best ideas from your team.

One of the challenges of working with a team of bright, creative people full of ideas, is that they are bright, creative, and full of ideas.

I learned long ago working in engineering that if you wanted to find out where the pain points of a process were, you would go straight to the people working on the front lines.  Each and every person knew one or two things that were simple, but would make the overall process much more efficient.  Many times they just weren't asked for their opinion, or in other cases there was no value or reward in sharing because of a lack of trust in the work environment (but that's for another posting).

Once your team has your trust and know you value their ideas, the problem becomes one of volume.  There are a lot of ideas, but not all of them are productive.

Some are just fun (e.g. buy Nerf guns for everyone) but aren't useable in the sense that they don't help your organization achieve something it couldn't do before, or save significant resources that could be applied to other areas (i.e. research and development) or differentiate your organization from your competitors.

Others sound good at first, but would derail critical projects, or (and this is the important part) take more effort to develop and implement than it would ultimately save.  If the value of the idea is not greater than the effort, thank them and move on.

In a former life I had a team of developers working for me, and they had lots of ideas.  For each and every time they came into my office with their idea, we would have the discussion of value over effort.  I finally wrote the following equation on my whiteboard:

V/E > 1

(Value / Effort must be greater than 1X the Effort)

What happened next was fascinating.  Programmers would come into the office, glance at the whiteboard, pause, then turn and leave without saying a word.  Other times they would come in and present their idea, which had great merit.

My team still had a voice, but inserting this filter into the conversation allowed for much better discussions.

How do you sort through the avalanche of ideas from your team?  You ARE soliciting your team for ideas, aren't you?

Kevin Pashuk is a long time technology executive working to Turn Technology Invisible - the way it should be in the 21st Century. 

Twitter: @InvisiTech 

Blog: http://turningtechinvisible.blogspot.com